Episode92
The Gratitude of Dragons We picked up the epic action with Kiwi down and out, Pete on the other side of the planet, Joe recovering from asteroid-absentee-sickness, Dragoral banished, Traxis holding back 'for strategic', Matrax holding on by a thread, and Oz momentarily standing alone against the might of Hellterror, a very pissed off tree-metal infused Reaver Dragon, moving ever closer to the Dragon Hoard. Strategic recap: We were summoned by the Dragons to help prevent the Reavers from getting their dark Reavery-mittens on the Dragon Hoard. They were quite insistent that if the Reavers got into the Hoard that it would be 'all over'. Our motivation for helping them was two-fold; both stopping it from being 'all over' as well as acquiring their help in the final confrontation with Yaw (who's inhabiting the Mother of All Dragons as his host). We figured out pretty quickly that we needed Kiwi back in order to combine Gaze since our individual Gaze's were puny by comparison. The trick however was that he had used all of his combat heals so we were going to need a 'dragon miracle'. We asked Traxis to help us and, with a little beguiling to help grease the wheels, agreed to restore Kiwi but warned us that it would take him out of the fight and that Kiwi would be 'fragile'. He also offered to help buff us a bit, as well, which we gladly accepted and then continued to battle while he prepared. We kept focused on Hellterror's mid-section. It still had lots of AC left which was reflecting our light-based attacks so we had to use alternative kinetic means including massive rail-gun damage from Joe. It took a couple more segments and a timely critical from Oz (to avoid interposition of another section) but we managed to blow off the AC and expose the dragon's juicy DC underbelly. A couple more segments of epic combat with 100+ strikes and DR attacks on both sides (blessed are our light-nano gods) we began to realize the futility of cutting through literally hundreds of DC on each section. Meanwhile, Oros was taking a beating and venting atmosphere into space from multiple hull breaches (goodby squirrel statue!). At this rate we'd run out of nanites and fall to epic-bulshittery dragon attacks long before Hellterror. We needed to Gaze this badass quickly and for that we needed Kiwi! Traxis came through for us with a Respite spell. It gave us three segments outside of combat time to prepare ourselves before diving back in. During this time, he did some kind of fancy trance-powered-regeneration on Kiwi which bounced him back up, ready to fight. Kiwi even had an extra segment to spare in the Respite. The rest of us retooled or buffed ourselves in various ways with the plan to start a team-gaze as soon as we re-entered regular time. One downside of the Respite was that our light-nanites continued to function so they expired before we could use them again. Back in the action! We needed to chase after Hellterror who continued to fly inexorably toward the Dragon Hoard. Pete's box-field-bot was handy here for deflecting nasty attacks away from 'fragile-Kiwi' as well as scooping up 'immobilized-Oz' and getting both of them within Gaze Range in time. Boom! We hit Hellterror's mid-section with a massive Gaze that ejected the Shade and did a few hundred DR. Alas! It was not enough. Hellterror fought on and the mid-section Shade was still alive. We quickly realized that we needed the Prism in-place to win so set about making that happen. One segment later, Oz and Pete embedded their respective prism weapons in the juicy mid-section and then we all started warming up for a big combined Gaze. There was a little talk about dropping the Gaze for more mundane attacks but Oz held firm and cajoled everyone into sticking with one last 'hail-mary' Gaze. It really was hail-mary time since only one of our friendly dragons was still functional (Traxis was in a Trance, Dragoral was Banished, and lady-dragon was in pieces) and we weren't much better (neither Pete nor Joe had armor left, Kiwi was 'fragile', and Oz... well, he was actually doing pretty good thanks to the supreme nature of the DC build (that one's for your Amarbiter). Worst of all, we were almost completely out of light-nanites which were making a huge difference in both keeping us alive as well as successfully striking. Those of us with light nanites left activated them and we combined for the biggest Gaze we could do minus all the NPC's who were incapacitated. It was enough. With the Prism, the light-nanites, and Kiwi's combinatorial arch-magic we blasted that damn reaver dragon out of the multiverse. Nothing remained of it except for a slagged dragon corpse and bad memories. Our Gaze had come just in time since it had literally been standing on the doorstep of the Dragon Hoard when it died. A few segments more and it might have gotten it open and then who knows what would have happened. Thankfully, that wasn't to be. We succeeded. Phew! After the battle Matrax took up guarding the Hoard (no treasure for us) and we spoke with Traxis. He was extremely grateful for our help. He assured us that we had earned the gratitude of the dragons and they would be there for us at the end against Yaw. We explained our plan in a bit more detail and he told us that we could expect dragon-magic-wielding defensive troops within Yaw. He approved our plan to enter his nostrils and go after the brain but warned us that it wouldn't be easy since Yaw was likely expecting us to use our Gaze so he'd be ready for it, somehow. We asked but apparently it takes a long time for Dragons to craft things that can be wielded (or can wield). No Dragon candy for us! While speaking with Traxis we showed him where the lady-dragon, Farela, had fell so he restored her to life. She was also very grateful and remarkably friendly for a dragon. Oz couldn't resist complimenting her on her amazing (and unique) white-patterned scales. Because he's Oz, he added a bit of flirting and scored an epic 76 to flirt-beguile. Apparently, he struck a chord in her heart because she offered (not that Oz likely had much choice) to try out some 'human-dragon hybrid' experiments over the next few generations. Oz isn't exactly sure what he's agreed to but it sounds like there might be some dragon-cousins someday down the Wheeler family tree. Assuming we make it through the convergence, the lady-dragon will collect him on the day he dies (which, if Oz has his way will be in a thousand years or so -Ascendent time). With all the excitement over, it became obvious that the dragons wanted us gone while they attended to 'Dragon Bidness' so Kiwi took us all back to Veilos. We called it there wondering if block 5 was salvagable and what we'd do with the rest of it. 1 combat 44 generic 11 combat for the logger Back to Space Junk Log Category:Space Junk